Misc

As a Peace Corps volunteer on islands in Micronesia it was a delightful to adopt the islanders’ use of banana leaves for everything from baking a sweet potato to serving a picnic lunch to storing leftovers. The giant banana trees in the garden were so convenient. Moreover, the banana leaf could not be beat for environmental friendliness. Once used, the leaves were tossed aside to become mulch for the garden.
Of course, back in the U.S.A. it is not practical to rely on banana leaves to wrap a Big Mac at MacDonald’s or ship electronics from Amazon.com. Nonetheless, there must be something better than...

by Jim Lane
It’s Thanksgiving week in the United States but we are feasting alternatively on acronyms here in Digestville. I.E., e.g., ICYMI, BYND IPO PDQ, and FYI Perfect Day AKA Muufri JDA w/ ADM.
As they said at Bletchley Park, let’s get out the Enigma machine and decode.
In New York and California this week, the nutrition side of industrial biotechnology — and specifically, the “beyond the cow moovement is, ahem, mooving faster with news that Beyond Meat has filed for its IPO and Perfect Day has inked a Joint Development Agreement with Archer Daniels Midland(ADM) to scale up the production of dairy proteins using fermentation...

What do you get for the person who hates stuff?
My family has this problem every year. As a somewhat rabid environmentalist, I think of stuff as part of the problem. I'm not a big fan of clutter, either. So I always have mixed feelings when I receive gifts. No matter how useful, I can't help but thinking about all the resources that were used to make it. Not to mention wondering where I'm going to put it.
You may have someone in your family who feels the same way, for whatever reason. Here are five of the best gifts I've...

by Debra Fiakas CFA It appears to be the ‘summer of the small-cap’ as performance in the sector outpaces other sectors on the first day of summer 2016. In keeping with the adage “make hay while the sun shines”, we shifted into a higher gear to find promising small companies that might participate in the small-cap renaissance. Trex Company (TREX: Nasdaq) bubbled to the top of a couple different screens based on growth and return. There is much to like in a company delivering strong growth. A bargain price is just icing on the cake. With a ratio...

Fiakas Water Utilities Keeping The Flow In Cash Flow by Debra Fiakas CFA After a long series of posts on suppliers of water infrastructure, from fire hydrants to filters and from taps to treatments, it is now time to look at the companies selling water. The majority of water utilities is owned by municipalities and is beyond the reach of investors. However, there is a clutch of publicly traded companies that peddle water as a business. Which water utilities make sense to return hungry and risk wary investors? A short...

by Debra Fiakas CFA There are well over 3,000 companies around the world that are involved in some element of wastewater treatment, providing a broad mix of technology, equipment or engineering services to generators and collectors of fouled water. A small group in this wide field is gaining visibility - the ‘water gleaners.’ Like the peasant women picking up stray grains of wheat left behind in the empty field of Millets famous painting, some see value in effluents, sewage and run-off. In this post we look at three small-companies with novel technologies to harvest water. New Sky...

by Debra Fiakas CFA In a game of word association many investors might respond Veolia Environmental SA (VIE: P or VEOEY: OTC/PK) at the mention ‘water reclamation.’ General Electric (GE: NYSE) and Siemens (SIE: DE or SIEGY: OTC/PK) might be next choices. These three companies have been ‘go to’ sources for water treatment by municipalities and industry. Indeed, it may take a behemoth to address water issues. In January 2015, the World Economic Forum declared water as the number one crisis impacting the world, recognizing the dire circumstances of water supplies. Over 660 million people - one...

by Debra Fiakas CFA Pipes, pumps and values are only part of the drinking water story we began telling last week. The Ecological Society of America estimates that the U.S. spends more than $2 billion annually on clean water projects in an attempt to prevent pollution and clean contaminated water. Water quality is a diverse market, beginning with projects to promote natural ecosystems which are the ultimate ‘water filter.’ The market extends to water treatment facilities, filtration systems and purification technologies among other solutions to ensure that our drinking water is safe. The market for water quality...

by Debra Fiakas CFA The dire condition of drinking water systems in the U.S. has been made glaringly apparent with the recent debacle in Flint, Michigan that has left numerous citizens in the community suffering from chronic health conditions as a result of contaminated water. We had no further than our own coverage group to find a company that could help solve problems the drinking water system. Mueller Water Products (MWA: NYSE) is a supplier of water meters, pipe fittings, valves, pipe repair components, and fire hydrants. Mueller’s Echologics leak detection solution gives water utilities details on water...

by Debra Fiakas CFA The most recent report by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gives a grade D+ for U.S. infrastructure as of the end of 2013. Not a very good grade, but an improvement over the plain D grade that had been handed out four years earlier. With the travesty of the water contamination in Flint, Michigan during 2014 to 2015, the ASCE report should carry special interest. The threat to the health of the Flint community could be found in anywhere in the U.S. The executive summary of the ASCE 2013 report does...

By Jeff Siegel The million-dollar manicured lawns of Montecito, CA have withered, died, and gone to seed. The polo fields are little more than dust now, and many have traded the good china for paper plates so as to avoid using the dishwasher. There’s no doubt about it Mother Nature doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor, black or white, fat or skinny. When she lays the smack down, we all feel it. And there is no better example of this than the debilitating drought that’s wringing the Golden State dry. Of course, for those who can afford...

50 Shades of Green Garvin Jabusch As I've written before, "human economies are still so far from real sustainability that even a highly idealized portfolio of our most sustainable enterprises necessarily falls short. Ultimately, the best any portfolio can do is mirror the reality of the world, and today, still, even the best representatives of sustainability can be found wanting compared to what will be required if we would like to keep society thriving indefinitely." There's no better example of the various conundrums swirling around sustainable economics than GMOs. As one institutional client, Timothy Yee of...

by Debra Fiakas CFA The citizens of a San Luis, Arizona are about to get a new, very tall neighbor. Solar Wind Energy, Inc. (SWET: OTCQB; formerly Clean Wind Energy Tower) recently secured 600 acres in the area to build a solar wind tower. This is a unique design that takes advantage of air heated by the sun’s power utilizes. Fast cooling of the air creates a powerful downdraft that drives turbines at the chimney base. Solar Wind expects the generators attached to its turbines to produce up to 1,250 megawatts of electricity that can be...

Marc Gunther How’s GE’s ecomagination going? I put that question today to Mark Vachon, who is vice president for ecomagination at General Electric (GE). He replied by talking about natural gas. “The large macro trend of gas is massive,” he said. “Our oil and gas business will be a huge beneficiary.” An abundance of shale gas in the U.S., and methane gas reserves in Australia present a wealth of opportunities for GE, which plays all along the supply chain for natural gas. “We’re a massive player in gas exploration,” Mark said. “We have a water business that can deal...

Dr. K. Global warming worriers like Al Gore are missing the many wonderful things that global warming will bring to the world, not to mention the many opportunities to profit from this so-called "climate catastrophe." Global warming isn't about hot weather, it's about hot stocks in your portfolio. A new report tells you the stocks to buy now! Global Warming is the greatest opportunity for investors in a generation. Some stocks may fall, but others will be headed upward like a the famous hockey-stick chart from the 2001 IPCC report. For just $499.95, you can buy my...

Saj Karsan EnviroStar (EVI) is a distributor of laundry equipment that has developed a proprietary dry-wet-cleaning machine that avoids the use of perchloroethylene (Perc), a harmful chemical that the International Agency for Research on Cancer has deemed a carcinogen. Perc is also classified as a hazardous air contaminant by the US Environment Protection Agency, and its use will become illegal in the state of California in the year 2023. EnviroStar's patented Green-Jet process uses an environmentally-friendly, water-based solution that is both non-toxic and requires less energy consumption than traditional dry-cleaning methods. This is currently a tiny company, with...